TWA Flight 800 set tone for EgyptAir investigation

NEWPORT, R.I. {AP} When EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged into the Atlantic last weekend, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman James Hall was on the investigation scene within hours.

Since then, he's been virtually alone in the public spotlight, presiding over news briefings and visiting grieving relatives, while investigators from the FBI and other agencies play much less visible parts.

It's in stark contrast to the crash of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996, when the NTSB took a secondary role to the FBI's dogged search for evidence of a crime.

Within minutes of the explosion of Flight 800 off the coast of New York's Long Island, the FBI was on the scene. Some 700 FBI agents tracked leads in what became the biggest investigation in the agency's history.

Although a vice chairman of the 350-employee NTSB was on hand the day after Flight 800 went down, Hall was not.

"The biggest lesson needed to be who was in charge of the investigation from Day One," said Paul Marcone, aide to U.S. Rep. James Traficant, senior ranking member of the aviation subcommittee which oversees the NTSB.

In addition to taking the lead in the investigation, the NTSB now counsels grieving relatives and keeps them abreast of the investigation the result of congressional legislation spurred by anguished relatives of Flight 800 victims.

The NTSB's stance at the head of the investigation has changed the tone of what the public hears about the crash and the investigation.

The specter of terrorism is not being raised so swiftly or insistently this time, although it is being considered because the plane was headed to the Middle East and Egyptian military officers were on board.

There is also no initial evidence suggesting a crime as there was with Flight 800, when dozens of people claimed to have seen a missile-like light streaking toward the plane before it exploded.

The Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 fell from 13,700 feet on July 17, 1996, shortly after leaving Kennedy International Airport. EgyptAir Flight 990 left the same airport and minutes later plunged from 33,000 feet to 16,000 feet, then rose to 24,000 feet before falling to the sea.

No evidence of a crime was ever found in the Flight 800 crash. Although the NTSB has not formally declared its cause, the crash apparently resulted from a center fuel tank explosion set off by a combination of mechanical problems including damaged wiring.